Sporting Goods

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Who will play in the BCS championship game?

Writers from around Tribune Co. discuss the topic. Check back throughout the day for more responses and weigh in with a comment of your own.

Matt Murschel, Orlando Sentinel

The Southeastern Conference has had a representative in the BCS championship game the last five seasons, and there isn't anything that makes me believe that it won’t happen again.

Although LSU appears to be the favorite coming out of the SEC, my feeling is that Alabama will be playing in New Orleans on Jan. 9. The Crimson Tide have the best defense in the country and one of the best running backs in Trent Richardson. Alabama's opponent isn't as cut and dried, but I think it will be Oklahoma State.

The Cowboys have shown they deserve to be the No. 3 team in the BCS standings behind LSU and Alabama. With the third-ranked offense in the country, Oklahoma State has powered its way past opponents this season, and with a remaining schedule that includes Kansas State, Texas Tech and Oklahoma, if the Cowboys can survive, they deserve to play Alabama in the BCS national championship game.

Kevin Love and Blake Griffin on the NBA lockout

Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love suggested the NBA lockout could hurt his team more than others.

"It's going to be tough to really get our team on the same page because we have such a young group of guys, a young unit of guys, where we're the youngest team in the NBA with a new coach," Love said at a promotional event at Santa Monica sports bar South.

Love, an All-Star who led the league in rebounds last season, intimated that other teams could perhaps better weather the storm.

"Teams like the Lakers, teams like the Dallas Mavericks and teams like the Boston Celtics, they have veteran players who somewhat need the rest in the off-season, a team that knows each other, has the chemistry, have played with each other.

"They'll kind of jump into the season when the season is started and the lockout is finished, and jump off where they were last year. With a team like us, we need time on the floor together."

Love was not the only player to express concern about the lockout.

Clippers forward Blake Griffin, who missed the 2009 season after sustaining a broken left kneecap in the final preseason game, seemed peeved that he's once again being kept off of the court.

"It's very frustrating," said Griffin, who was Rookie of the Year last season. "I think it's frustrating for all the players. We all want to be out there. We want to be playing."

— Melissa Rohlin

Terrell Owens: Would you want him on your NFL team? [Poll]

Terrell Owens held a workout Tuesday to show that he is fully recovered from a knee injury and ready to play in the NFL again. But the NFL may not be ready to have him back -- no scouts showed up.

Owens is a six-time Pro Bowl player and is second all-time in receiving yards and touchdown catches. But there could be lingering questions about the knee, or his age (37) or the all the drama he often brings along with him.

Would you like your team to take a chance on Owens? Vote in the poll and leave a comment explaining why you voted the way you did.

ALSO:

New England-Pittsburgh matchup a battle of AFC heavyweights

As (Andrew) Luck would have it, Stanford quarterback tunes out the noise

-- Chuck Schilken

Photo: Terrell Owens talks to the media following a workout at Calabasas High on Tuesday. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

WTA Championships Diary: Grunting issue rears its head as Stosur upsets Sharapova in Istanbul

Tenth time lucky: Sam Stosur defeated Maria Sharapova for the first time in Istanbul

To grunt or not to grunt

Grunting has become the issue of the day once again after Caroline Wozniacki revealed that from her point of view, when opponents grunt, it disguises the way they’ve hit the ball, and how hard they’ve hit it. The WTA is committed to finding a way to tackle the grunting issue, but crucially catching it early when players are still young before it becomes embedded in their style of play.

What do you think? Will that work? Or is it something we're going to have to live with.

Speaking of noise, one of a rather different sort is Petra Kvitova’s who screeches like a swooping eagle every time she wins a point. It’s extraordinary. The Wimbledon champion delivered a topsy turvy performance to beat Zvonareva 6-2, 6-4, afterwards admitting that she was very nervous.

Nobody beats Sam Stosur 10 times in a row…

At least not Maria Sharapova. Stosur produced a true ‘winning ugly’ performance in a way, her strengths nullified by the slower court, to beat the Russian 6-1, 7-5 for the first time in her career. Sharapova produced 30 unforced errors to Stosur’s 18, and is clearly not 100%. But still. It was a big win for the Aussie. “To win without using your best strengths I think is a big bonus,” Stosur said.

Still on top

Caroline Wozniacki delivered a virtuoso Caroline Wozniacki performance, winning a match she was expected to win, despite looking for most of it like she might lose it during her 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 victory over Agnieszka Radwanska. Wozniacki had three set points to win the first set, squandered them, but gritted her way through the next two, urged on by some exuberant on court coaching from father Piotr Wozniacki. Whatever anyone thinks about Wozniacki’s style of play, there’s no denying the girl can fight till she’s flat on the floor.

Winning the numbers game

Both Sharapova and Vera Zvonareva confessed to being “impressed” by the numbers of fans who had flocked to the opening day yesterday. With attendance surpassing 10,000, the fans were not only in their seats, but also fully engaged with what was going on the court, producing tuneful, and some not so tuneful, chants throughout all three matches.

“Pretty incredible,” said Sharapova about the atmosphere. “Yeah, I mean, to see I think it was like about 10,000 people out there, so enthusiastic and you never quite know what to expect when you come to a new place and a new city at an event like this. And I think that the attention that the tournament has got and the respect that the players have received has been really incredible. It's really nice to see.”

Multi-linguals

Credit to the umpires, who may well be dressed rather like air hosts and hostesses, but have seemingly mastered the Turkish language after just one day.

Coming up…

Sam Stosur v Victoria Azarenka

Another bout of ‘I have never’ for Stosur, who is yet to beat the Belarusian. This is their fifth meeting, all of which have been on hard courts, but they have never played indoors, so perhaps that will make a difference. Stosur should be high on confidence after beating Sharapova yesterday, but will that make it easier or harder for her to pull off a repeat? I think Azarenka might have too much for her.

Maria Sharapova v Li Na

Sharapova did not look her best by any means yesterday, but the fact that she has still made it to No 2 in the world this year shows that it’s certainly still there. Li on the other hand is the first to admit she hasn’t been hitting a ball in the court lately. So this could be interesting. Sharapova leads the head to head 5-3, and should really make it 6-3.

Caroline Wozniacki v Vera Zvonareva

Tied at 4-4 in their head to head, the last time these two met, Zvonareva came out on top, in the Doha final. But whether she has the weapons to break down Wozniacki remains to be seen. As she proved last night, the Dane can run and run from Europe to Asia and back again, so the smart money would be on her.

Catchphrase

“I think if there is any court that Radwanska likes, that’s slow. So I’m not sure what the complaint is about.”

A gentle dig from Sharapova about Radwanska’s court speed preference. The Pole had said she found the court a bit slow.

The daily click

Highlights from day one…

Did Team Lotus miss a trick by not announcing Karun Chandhok earlier in the year?

Feel very sorry for Team Lotus reserve Karun Chandhok that he won't get to race in the inaugural Indian GP, especially after all the work he has done to promote the event and especially considering it was widely taken for granted when he signed at the start of the year that he would be racing in Delhi.

As Tony Fernandes said, Team Lotus are in a tricky position, with 10th place in the championship – which is worth a reported $33 million to their coffers rather than $10 million for 11th – still not assured. He went for the experience of Jarno Trulli.

“While all the emotional reasons for him [Chandhok] driving were right,” said Fernandes, "we were conscious that the limited running he has had in the car this season, largely due to the weather conditions that have hit most of his FP1 sessions, has not given him the best preparation for this race. So we have taken the very difficult decision not to run him in this weekend.”

It may have been a pragmatic decision – and I'm sure Fernandes feels bad about it – but I can't help but think that the team missed a trick here. I'm no sponsorship expert but if Lotus had confirmed Chandhok for India months ago, surely they could have picked up additional sponsors and made it work financially? By leaving it so late to make a decision, perhaps sponsors were unsure or unwilling to commit? Even if they couldn't have picked up big contracts the Team Lotus brand would have been given a big boost in this region so the long-term benefits may have been considerable.

There is also the question of whether Chandhok would have done so much worse than Jarno Trulli on Sunday anyway.

Either way, Chandhok reacted with commendable (and prudent, considering his position) dignity. "Everyone knows the most important and emotional race for any driver is their home race and particularly so in my case," he said. "I've been involved with the project since the track was an empty piece of land. There's such a buzz in India at the moment – I've done 28 interviews in the last two days."

"I'm sure it's been a tough call for Tony to make and on some level I think he's feeling some pain about it as we've always had a good personal relationship. I joined this team mainly because of him and his faith in me while looking at the long term. I continue to hope that this long term plan bears fruit and I hope that one day I get to race for him again."

"I'm so proud to support the Jaypee Group in this historic weekend for Indian sport. For all the fans, including the hundreds from my home town in Chennai who have bought tickets in the hope of seeing me race and are travelling thousands of kilometres to Delhi, I hope that they all still have a wonderful time at the BIC."

Countries with a clenbuterol problem should be banned from hosting sporting events

Last week’s revelation that an astonishing 109 footballers taking part in this summer’s Under-17 World Cup tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid clenbuterol after eating contaminated meat poses a serious threat to world sport.

Both Fifa and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) are taking no action against any of the affected players because of the “compelling evidence” that tainted meat was to blame, while WADA has dropped two separate cases involving clenbuterol ‘positives’ in Mexico and warned athletes to “exercise extreme caution” about what they eat when visiting the South American country.

But the fall-out extends well beyond Mexico’s borders. Telegraph Sport today highlights the case of 22 year-old British sprint hurdler Callum Priestley, who is serving a two-year ban after testing positive for clenbuterol while on an official UK Athletics training camp in South Africa in 2010.

His claims that he had eaten contaminated meat at the UK Athletics hotel, and that he was even treated for food poisoning at the time of his drug test, failed to carry any weight with his disciplinary panel and his punishment was confirmed.

Although his ban expires in February, Priestley, once considered one of Britain’s brightest young track prospects, is so disillusioned by his experience that he has now quit the sport.

Michele Verokken, the former head of anti-doping in Britain, is convinced he was innocent though whether he was really telling the truth we will never be known for sure because once the meat was consumed, the evidence vanished.

Under the WADA code, the onus is on the athlete to prove his or her innocence, which Priestley was unable to do.

This central tenet of anti-doping regulations, that athletes are deemed guilty until proven innocent, will be tested again next month when the Court of Arbitration for Sport hears an appeal by WADA and UCI, the cycling world governing body, against the decision of the Spanish cycling federation to clear Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador after he tested positive for clenbuterol on his way to victory in the 2010 Tour de France.

The amount of the steroid found in Contador’s sample was infinitesimal compared to the levels recorded by some of the teenage footballers in Mexico. Contador’s problem is that, like Priestley, he has no real proof to substantiate his claim that his failed drug test was caused by contaminated meat that originated in Spain, a country where there is no firm evidence of clenbuterol use in livestock rearing.

But, with athletes’ careers at stake, it simply not good enough for WADA to exonerate athletes who fail drug tests in one country and prosecute them in another.

As things stand at the moment, an athlete wanting to cheat could catch a plane to Guadalajara, pump himself full of clenbuterol to receive its full muscle-building benefits and then look forward to being cleared of all blame if the drug-tester comes knocking.

The situation is a mess and some proper research is urgently required to establish the extent of the clenbuterol problem in farming worldwide to avoid a cheats’ charter in some countries while potentially banning innocent athletes elsewhere.

Countries where there is a proven problem need more than a WADA health warning. They must be barred from hosting any major international sporting events until they can put their house in order. Anything less puts athletes at unacceptable risk.

The case of Priestley also highlights the need federations to ensure that if an athlete falls ill while on an official training camp or at a competition, then the cause of that illness is thoroughly investigated in the same way that a tweaked knee would automatically be scanned.

If they refuse, then the athlete should insist. Doing nothing could mean the end of their career.

Did Team Lotus miss a trick by not announcing Karun Chandhok earlier?

Feel very sorry for Team Lotus reserve Karun Chandhok that he won't get to race in the inaugural Indian GP after all, especially after all the work he has done to promote the event and especially considering it was widely taken for granted when he signed at the start of the year that he would be racing in Delhi.

As Tony Fernandes said, Team Lotus were in a tricky position, with 10th place in the championship – which is worth a reported $33 million to their coffers rather than $10 million for 10th – still not assured. He went for the experience of Jarno Trulli.

It may have been a pragmatic decision – and I'm sure Fernandes does feel bad about it – but I can't help but feel that the team missed a trick here. I'm no sponsorship expert but surely if Lotus had confirmed Chandhok for India months ago, they could have picked up additional sponsors and made it work financially? By leaving it so late to make a decision, perhaps sponsors were unsure or unwilling to commit?

Even if they couldn't have picked up big contracts the Team Lotus name would have been given a big boost in this region so the long-term benefits may have been considerable. There is also the question of whether Chandhok would have done so much worse than Jarno Trulli on Sunday anyway.

Either way, Chandhok reacted with commendable dignity. "Everyone knows the most important and emotional race for any driver is their home race and particularly so in my case," he said. "I've been involved with the project since the track was an empty piece of land. There's such a buzz in India at the moment – I've done 28 interviews in the last two days."